I frowned in confusion. "What don't I know? Edward?"

Edward just glared at Jacob as if he hadn't heard me.

"Jake?"

Edward groaned and Emmett grinned.

Jacob raised his eyebrow at me. "He didn't tell you that his big . . .brother crossed the line Saturday night?"

"Why would I cross the line?" Emmett asked.

"There is only one reason I could think of," Edward said, his eyes hard.

"Which is?"

"Something you're just going to have to wait to hear about," Edward smirked at him.

"That's not cool, Eddy. What have I done to you... er... lately," Emmett pouted.

"How about laugh at everything in these books," Edward said, his eyes narrowed a little.

"Oh," Emmett said and then shrugged. "It's worth it... thought I hope she gets to the point soon," he added impatiently.

he asked, his tone thickly layered with sarcasm. Then his eyes flickered back to Edward. "Paul was totally justified in -"

"It was no-man's land!" Edward hissed.

"Was not!"

Jacob was fuming visibly. His hands trembled. He shook his head and sucked in two deep lungfuls of air.

"Emmett and Paul?" I whispered. Paul was Jacob's most volatile pack brother.

"That's right..." Emmett said, looking again like he would like a fight with the wolf.

He was the one who'd lost control that day in the woods - the memory of the snarling gray wolf was suddenly vivid in my head. "What happened? Were they fighting?" My voice strained higher in panic. "Why? Did Paul get hurt?"

Emmett laughed smugly at that - it was obvious she thought that he would win the fight.

"No one fought," Edward said quietly, only to me. "No one got hurt. Don't be anxious."

Jacob was staring at us with incredulous eyes. "You didn't tell her anything at all, did you? Is that why you took her away? So she wouldn't know that - ?"

"Crap... I'm in trouble now," Edward groaned. "Stupid mutt."

"It's your own fault; you shouldn't have lied to her," Esme scolded sharply.

"Leave now." Edward cut him off mid-sentence, and his face was abruptly frightening - truly frightening. For a second, he looked like . . . like a vampire.

"Oh no, Eddy, not that... anything but that," Emmett laughed.

He glared at Jacob with vicious, unveiled loathing.

Jacob raised his eyebrows, but made no other move. "Why haven't you told her?"

They faced each other in silence for a long moment. More students gathered behind Tyler and Austin. I saw Mike next to Ben - Mike had one hand on Ben's shoulder, like he was holding him in place.

"Does that mean that Ben was going to try and help you out?" Jasper asked, looking a little impressed.

"I looks like it," Emmett laughed. "He's rather brave for a little guy."

"Hm... that goes along with him being desensitized by being around you," Carlisle said. "I'm sure that most of the people around there instinctively know not to go near either of you at the moment."

In the dead silence, all the details suddenly fell into place for me with a burst of intuition.

Something Edward didn't want me to know.

Something that Jacob wouldn't have kept from me.

Something that had the Cullens and the wolves both in the woods, moving in hazardous proximity to each other.

Something that would cause Edward to insist that I fly across the country.

Something that Alice had seen in a vision last week - a vision Edward had lied to me about.

Edward flinched at the harshness in Esme voice when she read this line, knowing that it was probably in the same tone that Bella would have been thinking it.

Something I'd been waiting for anyway. Something I knew would happen again, as much as I might wish it never would. It was never going to end, was it?

"Tell us what it is already!" Emmett shouted and everyone laughed at him. "You all already know don't you?"

"Yep," Edward was the one to answer, seeing as he was the only one that could answer that truthfully.

"And no one told me?" Emmett pouted.

I heard the quick gasp, gasp, gasp, gasp of the air dragging through my lips, but I couldn't stop it. It looked like the school was shaking, like there was an earthquake, but I knew it was my own trembling that caused the illusion.

"She came back for me," I choked out.

"Oh!" Emmett said, smacking his own forehead (with the force like that of a truck). "Victoria, of course."

Everyone laughed at that.

Victoria was never going to give up till I was dead. She would keep repeating the same pattern - feint and run, feint and run - until she found a hole through my defenders.

"Her considerable amount of defenders... you know I think that I would have just given up," Alice said.

"I wouldn't have," Edward, Emmett, Jasper, and Rosalie said.

"I mean, if something would have happened to Bella...you/I would have wanted revenge..." Edward and Jasper said in unison.

"It just makes it more challenging..." Emmett smirked.

"Nothing would have stopped me from getting what I wanted," Rosalie said coldly, her eyes hard, and it was obvious what she was thinking about.

"Right...anyway, moving on," Alice said, rolling her eyes.

Maybe I'd get lucky. Maybe the Volturi would come for me first - they'd kill me quicker, at least.

"Depending on which member of the Volturi gets you..." Emmett started.

Edward was glaring at him.

"What? I'm just saying that she pissed Jane off..." Emmett continued.

"Shut up," Edward growled. Esme was shivering at that thought.

Edward held me tight to his side, angling his body so that he was still between me and Jacob, and stroked my face with anxious hands. "It's fine," he whispered to me. "It's fine. I'll never let her get close to you, it's fine."

Then he glared at Jacob. "Does that answer your question, mongrel?"

"You don't think Bella has a right to know?" Jacob challenged. "It's her life."

Edward kept his voice muted; even Tyler, edging forward by inches, would be unable to hear. "Why should she be frightened when she was never in danger?"

"Better frightened than lied to."

"He has point," Esme said. It was obvious she didn't like the reaction that Bella was having, but she still believed that. "You can't shield her from this."

"I know," Edward sighed, "but that doesn't mean that I don't want to."

I tried to pull myself together, but my eyes were swimming in moisture. I could see it behind my lids - I could see Victoria's face, her lips pulled back over her teeth, her crimson eyes glowing with the obsession of her vendetta; she held Edward responsible for the demise of her love, James. She wouldn't stop until his love was taken from him, too.

Edward wiped the tears from my cheek with his fingertips.

"Do you really think hurting her is better than protecting her?" he murmured.

"She's tougher than you think," Jacob said. "And she's been through worse."

Edward groaned at that. "He might have a point there."

"She's definitely been through worse," Emmett said.

"I meant that she's tougher than I think," Edward said.

"She is, so you should stop babying her," Alice said.

Abruptly, Jacob's expression shifted, and he was staring at Edward with an odd, speculative expression. His eyes narrowed like he was trying to do a difficult math problem in his head.

I felt Edward cringe. I glanced up at him, and his face was contorted in what could only be pain. For one ghastly moment, I was reminded of our afternoon in Italy, in the macabre tower room of the Volturi, where Jane had tortured Edward with her malignant gift, burning him with her thoughts alone...

"Oh, dear," Esme sighed.

"It looks like he's punching back," Emmett frowned. "And it looks like he's hitting you with everything he's got."

Edward didn't say anything he looked like he was going through all the things that the mutt could be showing him in his head, and he was both angry and pained by this situation.

The memory snapped me out of my near hysteria and put everything in perspective. Because I'd rather Victoria killed me a hundred times over than watch Edward suffer that way again.

"That's funny," Jacob said, laughing as he watched Edward's face.

"Shut up, you mutt!" Rosalie hissed, glaring at the book, defending her brother like she always would if the situation called for it.

Edward winced, but smoothed his expression with a little effort. He couldn't quite hide the agony in his eyes.

I glanced, wide-eyed, from Edward's grimace to Jacob's sneer.

"What are you doing to him?" I demanded.

"It's nothing, Bella," Edward told me quietly. "Jacob just has a good memory, that's all."

"And that's the downside to being able to read minds," Edward said, his eyes were hard. "I can't block his thoughts even if I wanted to... not with him being so close and screaming them at me."

Jacob grinned, and Edward winced again.

"Stop it! Whatever you're doing."

"Sure, if you want." Jacob shrugged. "It's his own fault if he doesn't like the things I remember, though."

I glared at him, and he smiled back impishly - like a kid caught doing something he knows he shouldn't by someone who he knows won't punish him.

"That's not fair... the mutt should be punished for this," Alice said, glaring at the book too. In her opinion he was hitting below the belt on this one and Bella should be angry with him.

"The principal's on his way to discourage loitering on school property," Edward murmured to me. "Let's get to English, Bella, so you're not involved."

"Overprotective, isn't he?" Jacob said, talking just to me. "A little trouble makes life fun. Let me guess, you're not allowed to have fun, are you?"

Edward glowered, and his lips pulled back from his teeth ever so slightly.

"Shut up, Jake," I said.

Jacob laughed. "That sounds like a no. Hey, if you ever feel like having a life again, you could come see me. I've still got your motorcycle in my garage."

"Damn," Edward glared at this.

This news distracted me. "You were supposed to sell that. You promised Charlie you would." If I hadn't begged on Jake's behalf - after all, he'd put weeks of labor into both motorcycles, and he deserved some kind of payback - Charlie would have thrown my bike in a Dumpster. And possibly set that Dumpster on fire.

"Yeah, right. Like I would do that. It belongs to you, not me. Anyway, I'll hold on to it until you want it back."

A tiny hint of the smile I remembered was suddenly playing around the edges of his lips.

"Jake . . ."

He leaned forward, his face earnest now, the bitter sarcasm fading. "I think I might have been wrong before, you know, about not being able to be friends. Maybe we could manage it, on my side of the line. Come see me."

"And now she has even more incentive to go... I bet she'll be in La Push in the next chapter," Emmett chuckled.

Edward just hissed at that and most of the family didn't seem too pleased with it either. The mutt wasn't really winning anyone to his side at the moment.